http://discovermagazine.com/
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/14-dna-pollution-may-be-spawning-killer-mic...
02.14.2008
DNA Pollution May Be Spawning Killer Microbes
Rogue genetic snippets spread antibiotic resistance all over the environment.
by Jessica Snyder Sachs
On a bright winter morning high in the Colorado Rockies, a slight young woman in oversize hip boots sidles up to a gap of open water
in the icy Cache la Poudre River. Heather Storteboom, a 25-year-old graduate student at nearby Colorado State University, is
prospecting for clues to an invisible killer.
Storteboom snaps on a pair of latex gloves and stretches over the frozen ledge to fill a sterile plastic jug with water. Then,
setting the container aside, she swings her rubber-clad legs into the stream. "Ahh, no leaks," she says, standing upright. She pulls
out a clean trowel and attempts to collect some bottom sediment; in the rapid current, it takes a half dozen tries to fill the small
vial she will take back to the DNA laboratory of her adviser, environmental engineer Amy Pruden. As Storteboom packs to leave, a
curious hiker approaches. "What were you collecting?" he asks. "Antibiotic resistance genes," she answers.
